As is known in the art, in two-dimensional (2-D) mammography and three-dimensional (3-D) breast tomosynthesis images, the peripheral area of the breast tends to have lower intensity than the central area of the breast. This is due at least in part to the thickness of a compressed breast decreasing from the central area to the peripheral area. Thus, to assess an image of the entire breast, a radiologist (or other medical professional or reader of the image) typically must adjust a window-level when reading different areas of the image to increase or decrease intensity levels to make visible certain features within different regions of the breast image (e.g. a central area of the breast vs. a peripheral area of the breast). This renders only portions of the image comparable at any one window-level setting and increases the time it takes to read the image.
Some peripheral equalization (PE) methods have been used in commercial mammography visualization workstations to automatically adjust image parameters to make image features visible in both central and peripheral areas of the breast with one window level setting. These approaches, however, result in undesirable artifacts within the image. In particular, prior art techniques result in the image having so-called segmentation lines and characteristic “overshoot” banding which are distracting and thus undesirable to a reader (e.g. a radiologist or other medical professional) of the image.